


Soothe A Troubled Soul

by handschuhmaus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: ...so is his apprentice, Crochet, Domestic Disputes, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Hego Damask is a weave structures geek, Knitting, Lace, Master-Apprentice bonding, Patchwork, Tenebrous makes excessive diagrams, Weaving, and very fond of and proficient at various types of lacemaking, applique, chronology what chronology, master-padawan bonding, maybe damask the fabric, needlepoint, needlework group, not taking the Sith seriously, overshot, paper piecing, schoolyard level violence (less than canon typical), shaft envy, shuttles, tatting, terrible Sith puns, this is a bit bizarre, trying to have an apprentice perform setup tasks, twills
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 05:45:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2217999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically, the Jedi and the Sith have an inexplicable fibercrafting group.</p>
<p>In which Tenebrous makes a tedious-to-correct tatting error and ends up on the floor, Yoda does applique, Plagueis and Sidious knit and argue over looms (Bane never said anything about one to envy the shafts!), and Obi-Wan crochets a scarf for his future master while sitting with Master Dooku.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soothe A Troubled Soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saphsaq](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saphsaq/gifts).



> ...title is a riff off that Elizabeth Zimmermann quote.
> 
> This is fairly ridiculous crack-ish fluff. And my needlework geek is showing. I am not very experienced with needlepoint and not necessarily familiar with the terminology. The sort of weaving in this story is something I've mostly only read about, only getting to try it once on a twill...table runner I think at, of all places, the SCA booth at a fiber festival. I don't even have a noteworthy loom and I already have shaft envy! But overshot, yes, on four shafts is good. Also it's been a while since the bulk of that reading and I don't even remember for certain that it's the reed you'd sley rather than the heddles, for instance.
> 
> I have done quite a bit of knitting and crocheting, though I've been out of the loop for a bit so I could make a mistake with some bit of lingo. I have not done too much quilting (more patchwork really) or really any applique (needleturn applique, two-handed colorwork ("fair-isle) in knitting, solomon's knots, needle tatting... these are techniques I mean to master _someday_ soon. X) ) but I have been around [older] quilting books quite a bit, so I have some familiarity with that.
> 
> And I am far from a shuttle tatting expert, but I think I do have the basics down. I suppose an explanation of some of the references might be helpful...?

Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was only an initiate after all, cringed at the loud heated tones of the argument and pressed himself closer into Master Dooku's side, realizing he was impairing the man's crocheting, but not really caring. Dooku was glaring irritably at the quarreling Sith as he completed another of the clusters that formed the bottom of the catherine wheel pattern and Obi-Wan admired his attitude in the face of the fearsome argument. He also glanced over at the young Zabrak who was needlepointing cross-legged on a floor cushion, surrounded by colorful lengths of wool, but had no adult hand to lean against. The young boy shyly smiled at him, and Maul returned a wary nod as he selected a new color and began stitching a particularly large and probably complex design in one corner of his canvas. Then Obi-Wan turned back to his own hook and took solace in thesoft wool and simple but pleasing chevron of the scarf he hoped to one day present to his master. It was mostly in soothing and very Jedi-like shades of brown, but he'd worked in two soft blues and was quite pleased with that. Unfortunately, the arguing Sith were anything but soothing.

"Why did you change my order?" Plagueis was demanding, and waving around what seemed to be either a sweater sleeve or a long sock leg in progress aimlessly as he talked.

"Because," Sidious yelled back, shifting the crumpled lace project all to his left hand (fortunately it was on a circular needle so he did not risk losing a needle) "as you well know, to do anything much _interesting_ with twills requires more shafts than you will apparently permit me. So overshot it is!"

Plagueis glanced at his floor loom, set up and mid-warping, and retorted, "But I wanted the twill book!"

"Yes," Palpatine agreed with gritted teeth, stabbing his needle into another stitch, and shortly thereafter moving it once more to his left hand, giving up on knitting during their argument, "and you insisted on having them sent to me, just to rub your _dobby_ in my face," he spat resentfully.

"An oversight," Plagueis growled, looking longingly at his own knitting.

A rhythmic clicking noise was coming from the other side of the room, and Obi-Wan glanced over to see that Darth Tenebrous, ensconced in the wing chair with an oversized clipboard he had seemed to be using as a makeshift drafting board, had produced a ball of multicolored thread and a small pink object and had begun, apparently, winding the thread onto the--was it a shuttle then?

"Bane never said anything about one to posess umpteen-shaft looms and one to envy them!" Palpatine exclaimed irately. 

For a moment, Plagueis looked to be on the verge of laughter, but he quashed this and thundered the command, "Sideous, sley my loom!"

"No!" Sideous refused and obstinately did resume his knitting.

As Obi-Wan performed the decrease at the bottom of a chevron, he noticed that Dooku had reached the end of his row and was running short on yarn, but when the Jedi Master looked in his project bag, he seemed to have brought the wrong color and so with a huff he bundled the muffler into the bag and pulled out his own knitting. Obi-Wan was not sure what it was, only that it had cables, but it was circular and seemed about the right size for a child's vest (though why Master Dooku would be making _that_ , he could not fathom).

Almost at the very instant that Master Qui-Gon Jinn entered the tense room, grasping a sack of what Obi-Wan knew was probably patchwork pieces, Tenebrous rose abruptly and stepped forward, as if impelled subconsciously by his frustration, towards his fellow Sith, shuttle dangling from the presently warped lace, and exclaimed inarticulately. There was just enough time for Palpatine to begin a dispassionate examination of the Bith's erroneous tatting before Damask irritably shoved Nome towards the floor. Qui-Gon rushed over in an attempt to right him, but it only resulted in his also being knocked to the floor, as Tenebrous had not braced himself for the push. For whatever reason, he obstinately remained on the floor, and set to work unpicking his half-closed ring.

Somehow, this seemed to resolve some of the tension between the other Sith, and, glancing at Sidious with near incredulity, Plagueis hurried out of the room. Sidious in turn glanced at Master Dooku, who regarded him evenly, and shrugged, continuing with his knitting, which regarded him to look down at it for some of the more complex decreases and quite possibly an increase in his lace.

When Plagueis returned very shortly thereafter, he had his knitting tucked under his arm and was Force-levitating a small fully warped table loom before him. He looked a little skeptically at Master Jinn and Tenebrous on the floor, the Sith irritably and with less than his typical fluidity unpicking his tatting, and the jedi fitting together diamonds and squares of patchwork and overcasting the seams.

Palpatine looked at the loom and his teacher, raised an eyebrow, and pushed his knitting down from the tips of the needles to set it aside. Plagueis set the loom up on the table, placed the knitting beside it, and headed over to the piano, which Obi-Wan _thought_ belonged to Tenebrous, making to filch the bench. Sighing slightly, Sideous palmed his own pair of shuttles, green and yellow, from his pocket. He was draping the thread around his hand to begin a ring when the Muun, having positioned the bench in front of the desk, pressed a different shuttle altogether into his hand. His apprentice looked up at him a bit incredulously before stepping towards the piano bench at the desk with the loom.

Such it was that when Master Yoda finally entered, with a vegetable tray and his quilting bag, the two Sith were seated on the piano bench in front of the loom; Plagueis sitting sideways and knitting intently, his back to Sideous but at a slight distance so as not to impair the movement of his arms; and Sideous facing the loom, wearing a slight smile and concentrating on the weaving, his feet moving every so often in habit as he was accustomed to the treadles of a floor loom instead of the levers of a table loom. The esteemed green Jedi Master regarded the people sitting on the floor somewhat doubtfully as he settled in the chair Tenebrous had vacated and spread out his quilt top in progress over his lap, the large golden yellow motif contrasting with the green background.

Sheepishly, Master Jinn stuck his needle into the motif he had been working on and moved to rise off the floor. The Bith beside him seemed to consider the notion slightly beneath his peculiar sense of dignity, yet he too got up and settled with Master Jinn beside Obi-Wan on the sofa, the last thing the initiate anticipated their doing.

"So, Sidious," Plagueis said, just as Tenebrous had opened his mouth, and Obi-Wan, shyly watching Qui-Gon, had switched to a different shade, "any feedback?" The Bith seemed miffed but still resumed the chain he had erroneously ended.

His reply was "I prefer treadles. --But, can't you do a simple damask on 16 shafts, Hego?"

Plagueis did not deign to reply, only laughed, which earned him a glare from his apprentice.

"What are you making?" Master Jinn asked gently, and Obi-Wan wished fervently that he was not so in awe of the large Jedi as to be dumbstruck by his question. Master Dooku regarded the two of them with a raised brow.

But Master Yoda answered, flexing his three-clawed feet, "Making a vest for me, he is. Requested it, I did." He was still bent over his quilt top.

"That's not what he asked," Tenebrous pointed out brusquely, and then addressed his fellow Sith at the loom, " _If_ you've a moment, perhaps you'd come look at this." They both stood up, Palpatine setting the weaving shuttle aside, and Plagueis tucking his knitting beneath his arm and moving to touch his master's lace. "Not _you_ ," the cantankerous architect scolded, letting his shuttle hang free and swatting the Muun's hand.

"No," Sideous reported after a moment, "you've joined it to something else entirely. But just back to the join." At this his tatting pupil huffed. The younger Sith ignored this and turned to the Jedi beside him. "What is that going to look like?" he inquired.

**Author's Note:**

> ...and I will not vouchsafe that you can weave much of a damask on sixteen shafts, but I _think_ a very simple one, according to the "a combination of satin and sateen" is possible.
> 
> Apparently Plagueis cannot knit while walking, or at least didn't go to the trouble. (Maybe because he was planning to touch the tatting all along)
> 
> ...so there wasn't going to be another chapter, but darn it yes I am going to say that I will write some sort of further chapter and go ahead and publish... XD


End file.
